3 Essential Qualities of Enterprise Search Marketers

Enterprise-level organic search engine marketing is all about optimizing different bits and pieces of web content that make up a large, complex website. Because each piece of an average enterprise-level “Frankensite” has dissimilar templates, disparate branding standards, and different stakeholders, it can be quite challenging to facilitate change and produce improved search engine visibility.

Given the nature of enterprise-level search engine marketing, what qualities should you look for when assembling an organic search engine marketing team?

Should you seek out extraordinary writers and creative marketers?

Or should you make certain every member of your team can write optimal code?

Perhaps someone more politically oriented would be best suited to your team?

While creative, technical, and political skills might be in good order, you should consider some offline skills when assembling an efficient enterprise-level SEO team.

Simple Patterns for Search Presentations

There is a reason why Simplicity remains the definitive resource for sewing patterns, tools, and supplies for the past 85 years. Simplicity lives up to its brand name – it knows how to keep things simple.

Just like simple paper patterns can be used as a foundation to construct intricate articles of clothing, so too can concise, consistent communication go far toward weaving fundamental principles of organic search engine optimization into large organizations that manage complex websites.

Whether walking through a complex, technically oriented deliverable or just talking about how infographics work, it’s important that enterprise-level search marketers are capable of communicating complex search engine marketing issues plain-English. Some people that we will work with might not know what a title tag is, let alone ever seen a robots.txt file or have never heard the word canonical used in a sentence.

If each team member strives to keep written and verbal communication simple, we can start to stitch together small patches of SEO success within a large, multifaceted organization because we're all speaking the same language. It also helps if the actual presentations are written in a way that they can be readily shared with almost anyone in the enterprise.

Tell the Entire Story

It isn't enough to be able to tell a good story. We need to be able to write a compelling narrative, too.

Just as every good book has engaging plot that has a definitive beginning, middle, and end, enterprise-level SEO team members should be able to prepare documents and deliverables that read like a good book.

Search engine marketers usually have an engaging message to land with our audience, yet we don't always know where the document or email will end up. Readers could be SEO novices, digital marketing executives, or contracted professional service providers.

We need to speak to all levels of SEO knowledge in our potential audience in order to ensure that everyone understands the moral of the story. That’s why each and every deliverable we create needs to have a beginning, middle, and end.

There should be an introduction that includes a statement about the purpose of the deliverable. Even a simple email message should have an introduction that clearly states the primary mission of why the message is important to its readers. Only then can we convey a message that will educate, illuminate, and inspire our readers to make the right decisions and take appropriate actions.

Finally, SEO team members should be comfortable outlining a brief summary or next steps that encapsulate the primary purpose of the message. There is nothing worse than producing a spot-on, well thought-through deliverable that fails to remind our audience to take action – and take action now!

When search marketers commit to telling the entire story each and every time we communicate with our extended SEO team, we're dedicating ourselves to telling the entire story that explains not only what we desire to happen, but why it needs to happen in the way we advise.

If it sounds like I’m getting a bit repetitive, indeed I am. With good reason, of course.

Say That Again?

While written and verbal communication skills are essential qualities we all desire in an enterprise-level search engine marketer, we must also get used to saying the same things over and over again.

The fact of the matter is that patience and persistence are essential qualities for successful enterprise-level search engine marketers to possess.

We must be patient when we practice enterprise-level SEO because we need to be able to repeat essential SEO best practices with countless:

Stakeholders.

Business partners.

Third-party service providers.

Marketing executives.

Writers.

Contractors.

The CEO’s third cousin twice removed who happens to know "a little something" about search engines.

If we are to optimize an enterprise-level “Frankensite” that has been stitched together from outliers and acquisitions, then it doesn't hurt to have SEO team members that know how to weave, knit, and sew.

If we want to create enterprise-level SEO strategies, then we should be prepared to communicate our thoughts in a concise manner that always explains why the message is important.

And if we do these things often enough and frequently enough, then we just might facilitate positive change in search results, because these offline attributes are three essential qualities of enterprise-level search marketers.

About the author

A frequent speaker at major search marketing conferences like SES and SMX, P.J. Fusco has been working in the Internet industry since 1996 when she developed her first search engine marketing (SEM) service while acting as general manager for a regional ISP. She was the in-house SEO manager for Jupitermedia and has performed as the SEM manager for an international health and beauty dot-com corporation generating more than $1 billion a year in e-commerce sales.

Today, P.J. is SEO manager at Covario Inc., working with Covario's talented SEO team to provide strategic services for a host of clients, including more than 60 Fortune 500 enterprises and Internet 100 companies.

Is Google Panda real-time, or has it been missing in action since October 2014? Glenn Gabe looks to clear up Panda confusion by explaining the evolution of Panda updates, what we can expect in 2015, and how it can impact business owners, webmasters, and SEOs.
0 Comments